My bosses at Allied Pixel are encouraging me to learn their teleprompter system, because think that I can fill in for them as a freelancer after my internship. While teleprompter operator isn’t my dream job, right now having income is my dream.
On a lot of their shoots, teleprompting is an important part of the work. They aren’t dealing with professional actors, they are dealing with working professionals who don’t have the time or talent to memorize their lines.
I’ve spent many days taking their tripods and cameras and teleprompters and putting them together. My supervisor Jay, who is the company’s main teleprompter operator, stressed the importance of being able to set the propter up quickly, because the cinematographer and director are going to be waiting on you to have it set up. Until the camera is connected to the teleprompter, they can’t look through it and start figuring out their shots and the lighting of the scene.
What I’m finding is the most important thing is to get the weight correct. There is a long metal plate that the camera and the teleprompter connect to, that is screwed onto the tripod’s mounting plate. The teleprompter screen and reflecting glass weigh a lot, and along with the camera, most of the weight is in the front, leaving the risk of the teleprompter and camera quickly dropping if the cinematographer goes to change the shot.
As far as actually running the computer software, I’m a little nervous about doing it. I haven’t had any experience with a live person reading off of it. The best I’ve done is listen to famous speeches, like Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech and teleprompting that. Hopefully, that adequately prepares me.